Tuesday, September 14, 2010

that's the class for the semester... and i guess that's what i'll talking about for the next three months. and again, i'm amazed for the amount of good stuff that's out there for readers in this age group!

so far i've read the hunger games by suzanne collins... a book i totally resisted reading because who wants to read a book about kids killing each other?! and it was post-apocalyptic, another strike! but since i was forced, i picked it up... then i couldn't put it back down. katniss is one of those characters that you might not want to like, but can't help it. she's wise and strong and brave--oh my gosh, so brave as to tell the government of this dystopian country to piss off at the end of the book and break all of the rules of the hunger games. i recommend this one... and you might like shirley jackson's the lottery.

i love nick hornby... especially after i read his young adult novel slam. i got this book from the man himself back in 2007 (yes, i love my job!) but didn't read it immediately. i don't know why, but what a treat it was for me when i remembered it while searching my shelves for something to read. slam is about sam...

sam is a skater... not on ice, but on a board

sam lives with his mom--his parents are divorced

sam was in love with alicia... but now not so much anymore

oh, and sam talks to his poster of tony hawk for advice... especially now since alicia {his ex-girlfriend} is pregnant

the back cover of this book says, "nick hornby usually writes about men who behave like boys, and now he's writing about a boy who behaves like a man." after reading juliet, naked, i couldn't agree more. sam is more of a man than tucker, or duncan, or rob in high fidelity, or will in about a boy... while those others are self-indulgent and so egocentric, and somehow sam isn't. he has the right to be, but i suppose that's what makes us readers so drawn into his story... every single little moment.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

i'm beginning to wonder if it's my status as an only child that makes me crave books about friends and big families... mayhaps. but i picked up the girls from ames by jeffrey zaslow and just couldn't read it. it depressed me, do people, especially women stay friends? for forty years? when each takes a different path? some school and careers... some marriage and families right out of college... and some doing it all at once? where does the petty competition come to play?

i'm so jaded. part of the problem for me probably came from the fact that i picked it up during the weekends between my class reunions. reunions? yep, i went to two highschools--public school for 3 semesters, and private school for 3 semesters and that's where i graduated from. when you change schools in the middle of your junior year, it makes for a weird limbo.

when i looked {on facebook, of course} of pictures from the highschool days, i wasn't in any... not one. it's then i started to fall into this chasm of feeling like i was non-existent for 3 years of my life. looking back 20 years later, it's one of those things that would/could tend to push one into making sure one's children don't look back with regret...

what?! what am i rambling on about? certainly, i'm not talking about books and that's what this little thing is all about. so let's move onward and upward and talk about an audio book that came highly recommended by the author author! because she and i are friends... at least on facebook... heh heh!

one day, rebecca wells posted that she was really proud of the fact that she recorded an audio version of the divine secrets of the ya-ya sisterhood. you know, i just ranted about how often author's ruin their books by trying to read them... and i hate abridgements... quelle surprise!! {read that in a creole french accent, dah-lin'} it was great! rebecca wells did a perfect job reading the book and abridging the book to keep the mother-daughter relationship neatly intertwined with the ya-yas. but did i expect any less? mais non!

if you are looking for a good listen, you should go over to audible.comand give it a try...

happy reading/listening!

btw: i don't work for audible or anything, but i do have a membership with them, and i'm not sure if this download is available other places

Sunday, August 22, 2010

this is my new-found freedom I've found from reading flow: the cultural history of menstruation by elissa stein.occasionally, I read non-fiction, and this book was recommended by one of my more “interesting” patrons.this patron handed me this book, and in a voice heavy in conspiracy said, “you’ve been lied to.”a little weird yeah.

but this book was so interesting in the fact that MEN have made us embarrassed by this thing our body does for no specific reason that anyone knows… a thing that has been understudied, misunderstood and corrupted by the femcare industry and pharmaceutical companies.

stop!I love men.I’m not a man hater… but this book is one of those books that makes you rethink everything you’ve ever thought about your period because it’s men who have convinced us that we’re crazy, depressed, practically abnormal and should be shunned.

shunned?sequestered?hmm… a little red tent time?I could handle that far better than charlotte perkinsgilman’s story the yellow wallpaper.the story stemmed from her seeking help for mild depression from a doctor renown for sending men with depression west to journal their experiences.however, for women, the good doctor recommended rest… read the story. Go back to are you there God, it's me margaret... and dig out that memory of nervous excitement of being caught in between being first and being last to get it..

flow is an easy read… maybe not so much for the people in your life who are a bit squeamish, because it’s one of those books where you are compelled to read parts out loud in disgust, anger or in laughter.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

again, i apologize for my lapse in posting... because i know you all wait with held breath for my book thoughts, right?! maybe i should change my blog's title to

don't hold your breath!

i've been reading a bunch, even if i haven't been posting. first of all, i want to continue the last post because at first i was disappointed with how the helpended. i expected great earth-shattering changes for aibileen and minny and the rest of the help. and when the book ended, i didn't feel that. in my mind, i was thought, "really? that's it?"

but two months later, and after reading sit-in: how four friends stood up by sitting down with my guys... i had one of those slap yourself up-side the head moment!! the whole movement was based on the tiny and patient steps by people who saw that any gain is a gain--no matter the size. and what skeeter, aibileen and minny did was earth-shattering because it made people stop and think. so now i recommend the help whole-heartedly versus my eehreview in may.sometimes, I wonder about myself…

and now, I’m slogging thru the girl with the dragon tattoo… and so far my {previously mentioned} feeble brain isn’t as impressed as the rest of the world. what am i missing?

Monday, May 24, 2010

for example, nabokov's lolita or bernhard schlink's the readerare both are fabulous books, and are worthwhile reads. but they are too one-sided to me.i'm aware that's a literary device, and creative license, and lalalalalaaaa...

but give me somethin' that i can sink my teeth in and hear a fuller version of the story.

there are three different voices talking about what happens when the color lines get blurred in Jackson, Mississippi in 1962.the world is on the verge of change, and it's starting to trickle south, as it were.

one thing i love about southern books, is everyone's got a nickname.think about the ya-ya sisterhood... and the help is no different.eugenia "skeeter" phelan has come home from ole miss with a degree and notan MRS like her all of her friends.she has aspirations different from the junior leaguers... skeeter wants to be a writer! sadly the only journalism job available in jackson is as the housekeeping advice columnist.

yep, there's a bit of irony there, as she's never done anything for herself because she was raised by "the help" too.but thru a series of events finds herself turning to aiblieen and minny, house maids, for help on the housekeeping column, and the column turns into a book about what it's like to be ablack maid in mississippi.

in 2010, the civil rights movement is a moment in history that invokes a wide range of emotions for everyone, i'd suppose.for me, it was breaking out in goosebumps in the nashville public library's civil rights room with a lunch counter replica and ugly visions of peaceful demonstrations...

or being on the lincoln memorial with hot tears escaping down my cheeks with thoughts of dr. martin luther king having a dream for a better future while standing on the very same stepl...

or the anger, shame and disgust i feel by reading this book! these friends of skeeter's are steeped in a sweet tea of ignorance! and i know this is how the world was then, and how they were raised, but an initiative for every home having a separate bathroom for the help because they carry diseases that the whites can catch?really...!?!

the fear i feel for the help who are working with skeeter on her book, i can't help wonder what will happen when the book is completed.and what will skeeter do?will she continue to say thank you--and actually mean it--to the black women who wait on her?will what they're doing make any difference in the world in which they live?

i don't know...

obviously, i'm not done with the book yet... my ipod battery died this morning! i'm dying to finish it!!

however, here are a couple of other books I loved with good talk:

almost paradise by susan isaacs--certainly not high literature, but a good story told from two sides of a courtship, marriage, and betrayal.